Math Table is a seminar jointly run by the Harvard Mathematics department and undergraduate students. The purpose of Math Table is to provide an opportunity for undergraduates to be exposed to interesting mathematical topics, as well as to gain experience in communicating and teaching mathematics.
Talks take place roughly every other Wednesday at 4:30 PM in SC 507. For Fall 2025, starting date is TBA.
All Harvard undergraduate students are welcome to attend any Math Table talk and to sign up to give a talk. Talks come in a wide array of topics, background levels, and styles (see the "Resources" tab). The Math Table organizers (see "About" tab) are here to help you pick topics and develop your talk, so even if you aren't sure about what your topic is, you should come speak with us!
To sign up to give a talk, or if you have any questions about Math Table, please send an email to Philip Matchett Wood (pmwood@math.harvard.edu). You can also contact Matthew Demers (mdemers@math.harvard.edu ), Erica Dinkins (edinkins@math.harvard.edu ), or Roderic Guigo Corominas (rguigo@math.harvard.edu ).
Speaker: Ava Zinman
Abstract: This talk seeks to distinguish between mathematical terms that provide a strong characterization of correctness; namely, proof and truth. We first formalize our motivating question, the Henkin Problem, and subsequently answer it by proof of Löb’s Theorem. Gödel’s 2nd Incompleteness Theorem, a corollary to Löb’s result, inspires the use of forcing to model ZFC-provability. We ultimately conclude that mathematical uncertainty stems from the inaccessibility of “natural” truth, which must be resolved by use of intuition.
For food, please RSVP here.